Zásahy adaptace. Ke studiu literatury ve filmu
Adaptations and their intrusions. Studying literature on screen

Summary/Abstract: This submission considers how we can better understand film adaptation nowadays. The introductory section outlines changing ideas regarding intermedia transpositions between literature and moving images, not only reflecting the turnaround in the Anglo‑American field which started around twenty years ago, but also the way Russian formalists approached this phenomenon and the way Czech researchers have contributed to the debates. For further consideration of “films of the books” we have set out three interpretational perspectives, which we have developed further: intertextual, intermedia and cultural‑social. The first two perspectives have made it very clear that shifts towards a materialistic view have not reduced our interest in the aesthetic nature of adaptation and the malleability of the new text. Our interpretations deal with films by John Huston (The Dead, The Man Who Would Be King) and James Ivory (The Remains of the Day). Of course we cannot just make do with an immanent analysis of the text and an exposition of the relations between the book, the screenplay and the film. We believe that we will only gain any substantial motivation to ask new questions if we approach adaptation from culturological, sociological and economic viewpoints. In the final part of the article we have thus turned our attention to questions leading us from the silver screen to the circumstances surrounding the creation of the new text. We have examined the issue of film transcription authorship, basing our working hypotheses on a particular case in which a hired lawyer assessed the author’s share in the creation of a screenplay arising from a prominent work of Czech literature, Markéta Lazarová by Vladislav Vančura. Debates in the working group that preceded the filming and influenced the creation process were illustrated using Démanty noci (Diamonds of the Night) by Jan Němec. On the basis of Huston’s Africká královna (African Queen) we have referred at the very end to particular problems in the creation of the film adaptation. The study does not insist on exclusivity for any of the methods described. All of them are valid and contribute to a better understanding of the relations between literature and moving images. We may well stress that at a time of change in humanities research, we should not lose sight of art‑studies issues, but we are still very aware that cultural, sociological and economic approaches can fundamentally enhance the debate on adaptations.

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